Consumer media content is continuously evolving from black and white content to color content, high definition (HD) content, ultra high definition (MD) content, and the like. Recently, the standardization for high dynamic range (HDR) content has been proceeded, and standards for HDR content have been distributed. Meanwhile, VR content had been in an incubation stage before VR devices were distributed.
FIG. 1 illustrates a processing flow for providing VR media content.
The processing flow for VR media content may follow the procedure illustrated in FIG. 1.
For example, an image captured 100 by a video camera may be mastered 102 by a mastering device, encoded/multiplexed 104 by an encoding/multiplexing (Mux) device, and distributed 106 as VR content in various media formats.
The distributed VR content may de-multiplexed (Demux) 108 in a receiving side, transmitted 110 to a display device, and VR displayed 112.
VR content has characteristics significantly different from the conventional 2-dimensional (2D) or 3 dimensional (3D) content. VR content provides a user with an immersive experience by allowing the user to view an image at all of 360 degrees. However, freely viewing an image at 360 degrees by the user means that a content provider partially damages the image provided to the user in an aspect of artistic depiction.
One of the main reasons why the spread of VR content and a device is delayed is that a display quality of VR content is not better than that of fixed view content non-interactively displayed. That is, a screen content quality of current VR technology which consumers experience is poorer than that of fixed view-type content.
While industry recommendations (for example, UHD resolution or HDR, etc) for next-generation content are defined with respect to the fixed view-type content, VR content is restricted by basic issues such as a picture resolution, an insufficient frame rate, and flickering.
Currently, a quality of VR content is limited by resolution. Users are considered as being accustomed to an HD resolution of at least 2K. Accordingly, users expect a resolution of a better quality (more immersive quality) for VR content.
However, a current VR system is limited by a decoder which can support decoding merely up to 4 K (4 K UHD, that is, a resolution of 2160 p).